Peace out: maker of the top ad-blocker in the Apple Store pulls it because it 'just doesn't feel good'

The developer of the wildly popular ad blocking app Peace is pulling it from the App Store after just two days because of his new misgivings about the thorough way it blocks ads.

The app rocketed to the number one spot of the App Store's top-downloaded list on Wednesday evening after Apple's iOS 9 update allowed content blocking in Safari for the first time. Several other new ad blocking apps also cracked the chart's top ten.

But developer Marco Arment wrote in his blog on Friday that the app's runaway success has left him feeling uneasy about the fact that the app indiscriminately blocks all ads.

"Peace required that all ads be treated the same — all-or-nothing enforcement for decisions that aren’t black and white. This approach is too blunt," Arment wrote.

"Even though I’m 'winning,' I’ve enjoyed none of it," he said. "Achieving this much success with Peace just doesn’t feel good, which I didn’t anticipate, but probably should have."

The app will likely still be available at least until a major iOS update for users who have already downloaded it, though there will be no future updates to the app. Arment also linked to a guide to getting a refund for the $2.99 users paid to download it.

The explosion in popularity of ad blockers has led to a bitter ethics debate between those who see them as an existential threat to the free Internet and those who are sick of barrages of obnoxious — and sometimes harmful — ads and arrays of trackers that trace their online movements to better target ads.

"Ad-blocking is a kind of war — a first-world, low-stakes, both-sides-are-fortunate-to-have-this-kind-of-problem war, but a war nonetheless, with damage hitting both sides," Arment said.

Dean Murphy, who developed the ad blocking app Crystal — which has now taken over the top spot from Peace — also said he felt conflicted about the app's popularity. Murphy gave away the app for free to the first 100,000 users to download it, then set a price of $0.99.

"The success of it is kind of bittersweet because I love the Internet and I love the websites that are on it," Murphy told Mashable. "But at the same time, I hate the mobile ads industry...I just find it very intrusive and very hostile."

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